British soldier Craig Lundberg of Walton, Merseyside, England was blinded by a by a rocket propelled grenade in Iraq in 2007. He has been fitted with a prototype BrainPort device that converts images from a video camera in his goggles into electrical impulses send to a plate in his mouth that he can read with his tongue.

L/Cpl Lundberg said it felt like "licking a nine volt battery or like popping candy".

"You get lines and shapes of things, it sees in black and white so you get a two dimensional image on your tongue, it's a bit like a pins and needles sensation," he said.

"It's only a prototype, but the potential to change my life is massive, it's got a lot of potential to advance things for blind people.

"One of the things it has enabled me to do is pick up objects straight away, I can reach out and pick them up when before I would be fumbling around to feel for them."